Magne and Steve Barron at The Arts Club

Posted by Jakob S on June 2nd, 2015

The new book cover, designed by Magne (Photo by Judith Heinrich)

Magne and director Steve Barron appeared at The Arts Club in London last Thursday, May 28th, to celebrate the release of a new special edition of Barron’s 2014 memoir Egg n Chips & Billie Jean: A Trip Through the 80s, for which Magne has designed the cover.

“I’ve read the book and it’s hilariously funny. And not just the parts that I was a part of (laughs). There are some amazing stories in there and I’m happy that you let me contribute a little bit with the cover”, Magne said.

Paul Stolper introduced the two of them, who talked for an hour about Barron’s work with a-ha – he directed eight music videos for the band between 1985 and 2010 – and the other music videos he’s done. Barron also read an extract from his book about the time he and the band were in Montana filming the “Crying In The Rain” video in 1990. Afterwards they did a little signing session.

Magne and Steve Barron signing books (Photo by Judith Heinrich)

“The first three [a-ha] videos that you did, they were all your ideas. They were all you. We were kind of just kids coming in. We might have been allowed to say something about it, but we just kept ourselves back. I don’t think it was until Manhattan Skyline that we said ‘Steve, we really want to talk about our situation’. The media are referenced and Brazil – the Terry Gilliam film – about this guy disappearing in newspapers and we started interacting about [that concept]”, Magne said during the conversation.